The amount of electrical energy consumed by exit lamps, table lamps (and wall and ceiling lamps), safety lamps, and security lamps is enormous. Some of these lamps burn night and day, every day of the year. The energy consumption may be reduced drastically by switching from incandescent lamps to fluorescent lamps, but there are great numbers of existing lamp fixtures that are constructed and sized for conventional incandescent lamp blubs. Because the replacement of such existing incandescent lamp fixtures would be prohibitively expensive, attempts have been made to provide small-size fluorescent lamps in combination with screw-type plugs adapted to thread into incandescent lamp sockets in existing fixtures. However, such substitute combinations are generally too large to fit into existing incandescent lamp fixtures for exit lamps, etc.
Compact fluorescent lamps are made by several companies. For example, one is manufactured under the trademark DULUX by Osram Company of Germany (one such lamp is shown at the top of FIG. 3 of the present drawings). Such lamps have starters located in plastic housings connected to the bases of the lamps. The starter housings project downwardly well below the pins to which electrical connections are made.
There are also on the market, in addition to such compact fluorescent lamps, mass-manufactured electrical-connector plugs adapted to screw into conventional sockets for incandescent lamp bulbs. Such plugs, one of which is shown in FIG. 2a of the present drawings, are desirable to use because the startup costs for manufacture of compact fluorescent lamp combinations are minimized where existing, on-the-market parts (such as that shown in FIG. 2a) can be utilized.
A prior-art approach to combining the compact fluorescent lamps with the screw plug shown in FIG. 2a is illustrated in FIG. 1 of the present drawings. As is there illustrated, the prior art employs an external extra socket (numbered 46) which receives both the starter portion of the lamp and the contact pins thereof. Such external socket is, in turn, associated with the screw plug of FIG. 2a, and there is associated therewith a "ballast" coil (inductor) which is matched to the fluorescent bulb. The ballast is incorporated in a housing as illustrated in FIG. 1.
A major problem is that the assembly of FIG. 1 is not only relatively expensive, but--much more importantly--will not fit in a very large proportion of incandescent lighting fixtures now in place relative to exit lamps, table lamps, etc. Thus, the degree of utilization of the prior-art approach of FIG. 1 is restricted to a great extent.
In accordance with the method of the present invention, which produces the compact fluorescent lamp combination shown in FIG. 2, start-up cost is also reduced while at the same time making the entire combination sufficiently small that it may be received in the vast majority of existing incandescent lighting fixtures used for exit lamps, table lamps, etc.